Defection
by Caitlin M
Summary: When an unexpected visitor collapses on the porch of a safehouse where the five pilots are staying, none of them are happy. Except one... Probably AU due to my lack of series knowledge, rating due to Duo's mouth. Not that way, you pervs!
1. In which the Boys get a guest

a/n: It's all Jenny's fault! All of it, I tell you! She forced me to post this, and I have about three or four other fics to work on, and I wrote this on a whim and then showed it to her, and she. . .she. . .oh well. I secretly wanted to post it, anyway ^_~ 13x5x6, 1x2, 3x4. Maybe slight OOC because I've never written the G-boys before. Heero's enigmatic Japanese reply translates to "That is a secret", the anime it was taken from is Slayers, the character who the slogan belongs to is Xellos. The story I had Duo write in this actually does exist; its author is Madam Hydra, a very wonderful writer whom I admire a lot. Unfortunately, I can't recall her site's address. Eheh. Anyway, enjoy, minna!  
  
Disclaimer: If I owned Gundam Wing, you think I'd be writing this? Nope. I'd be busy killing Relena and getting Duo and Heero together, and also not getting Treize killed, in the actual SHOW instead of here. Go figure.  
  
Chapter One: The boys have an unexpected visitor, Wufei stays up very late,  
and the origin of some monikers.  
  
In a rather shabby house, roughly in the neighborhood of Russia, five boys sat around a rather shabby living room. Bright blonde hair and huge, innocent sea-green eyes leaned contentedly against mid-brown hair that concealed one of its owner's darker green eyes. The other was half-closed in almost feline silent pleasure as it watched the others, one arm wrapped possessively around blonde. Black hair and equally black eyes sat alone, observing his companions with secret amusement and a resigned expression. Dark brown hair and almost navy blue eyes watched chestnut braid and glittering, almost manic amethyst sparkle with cheerful, far from innocent mischief. These last two also sat together, like blonde and mid-brown, and dark brown was watching his partner with exasperated, but still obvious, affection.  
  
"C'mon, Hee-chan! Have you or haven't you? It's a simple question!"  
  
"To quote that exasperating character from the latest anime you forced us to watch. . ."  
  
"Aww, you know you liked it!"  
  
Heero continued, ignoring the interruption. ". . .sore wa himitsu desu."  
  
"Heeee~ro!" Duo complained, then clapped his hands over his mouth, unclapping them to ask fearfully, "Tell me I didn't just sound like who I think I just sounded like."  
  
"You could never be as bad as her. Not even on your worst days."  
  
The playful bantering was plainly about to degenerate into something much more intemperate, and Wufei was plainly about to tell the pair to get a room, when the doorbell buzzed. Silence fell fast and hard, and the pilots exchanged puzzled looks. The safehouse was several miles out of town, in the middle of some quite deep forest, and no visitors were expected. The buzz continued, as if whoever-it-was was leaning on it for support, and then abruptly stopped. The pilots sat in a frozen tableau for a moment, then Duo broke the silence.  
  
"Speak of the devil. Guess we should check for the pink limo, huh?"  
  
Heero groaned, the others looked wryly amused. "Ha, Maxwell," Wufei retorted. "I'm simply dying of amusement." The corner of his mouth turned up a bit, softening the retort, and he went to the door just as a soft thud sounded from the porch; the quiet but unmistakable noise of a body hitting the ground. The others exchanged looks and followed Wufei.  
  
The Chinese boy cracked the door open, bracing a foot behind it to prevent it from being forced open by any unfriendly parties on the other side. The only visible party, however, was a tall figure wrapped in a rather tatty blanket, sprawled full-length on the porch, face hidden by aforementioned blanket. The obscuring folds of cloth were stained with a rusty red substance that might have been blood, and might have been something else. The latter, however, was very unlikely in Wufei's opinion, and he had seen enough blood to know what he was talking about.  
  
"Well, who is it?" Duo demanded impatiently from just behind the Chinese boy's shoulder. "Please don't say Relena."  
  
"Duo!" Quatre protested, but his heart wasn't in it.  
  
Trowa noted the set of Wufei's shoulders and stepped up behind Duo. "It's not, is it? Wufei?"  
  
"No," Wufei stated, pulling the door open more fully after checking around carefully for any other visitors and finding none, not a sign in the trees or along the path, which was cleared for several yards to the right and left for several hundred feet in front of the house. "I think it's safe to say that it's not."  
  
"Oh, god!" Quatre caught sight of the collapsed figure and pushed past Wufei. "But why. . .how did he get out here? What could have happened to him?"  
  
"Take him inside and let's find out," Duo suggested. Heero shot him a look, but he only raised his eyebrows. "What? It's not like one presumably wounded guy is any threat, especially not to all five of us."  
  
"He has a point," Wufei pointed out. Trowa nodded once in agreement, and stepped forward to help his blonde lover. As they lifted the man together, however, his concealing blanket fell back, revealing a pale, strained, and familiar face. Quatre almost dropped him in shock. Trowa was calmer, but his eyes widened, and then narrowed. Duo leapt slightly backward with an exclamation of "Holy shit!" Heero's eyes narrowed, and his expression went completely blank. No one noticed Wufei's eyes widen and shimmer, or noted his initial, quickly stilled motion towards the unconscious and bloodied figure of Treize Kushrenada.  
  
* * *  
  
"So what are we going to do now?" Duo asked, fifteen minutes later. The pilots were seated around the small living room of their current hideout, in varying attitudes of tension.  
  
"I say we dispose of him as quickly as possible." Heero voted. "The man's our enemy, and he poses a threat to us as long as he's alive."  
  
"He's injured fairly badly," Trowa pointed out.  
  
"Yes, and that leads up to what I want to know," Quatre said. "Why is he injured, and how on earth did he find his way here? Is he running from his own people? Did he come here knowing that we'd be in this house, or was it an unbelievable coincidence?"  
  
"It was a hell of a coincidence, then," Duo said. "Out of all the cabins in all the woods in the world an injured Treize could drag himself to he ended up here? No fucking way that was by accident, Q."  
  
"That still leaves the rest of my questions," Quatre replied. "Why come to us? Who shot him? It's fairly plain that he was shot, at least."  
  
"I still say we can't afford to keep him here," Heero insisted. "He's a threat and we should get rid of him."  
  
"C'mon, Hee-chan, the guy's injured. Shot in the leg, shoulder, and back by god-knows-who, and with a few broken ribs to boot. We can't just dump him in the forest to bleed to death, and I definitely don't want to be the one to shoot him while he's out like a light!" Duo sat back and crossed his arms over his chest defiantly.  
  
"I agree with Duo," Quatre stated mildly. "In his condition, he can't do anything to harm us. We should keep him here, where we watch him. Isn't there a saying, keep your friends close and your enemies closer? He could even be useful to us as a source of information."  
  
"He's likely to be unwilling to talk," Trowa commented. "Just as Wufei seems to be at the moment."  
  
Their attention drawn to him by the usually silent green-eyed boy, the three main participants in the argument turned their gazes towards the silent Chinese pilot, who was sitting with his hands clenched in his lap, staring at his white knuckles. Duo exchanged glances with Heero, then Quatre.  
  
"Wufei?" he asked, concerned.  
  
Black eyes, filled with some indefinable emotion, shot up and met his with an almost physical impact. His voice, however, was calm and collected. "What?"  
  
"You've been awfully quiet through this. What do you think we should do with Mr. K now that we've got him?"  
  
"It's no concern of mine," Wufei almost snapped, then got himself back under a thin rein of control. "I'll go along with what you all decide. If you'll excuse me, I think I'll see if. . .Mr. Kushrenada. . .is awake yet."  
  
He rose in a quick, abrupt motion like a striking snake and strode, almost jerkily, into the room where they had placed the General. Duo blinked after him.  
  
"What the heck was that about?"  
  
Quatre shrugged helplessly, the other two simply shrugged. After a moment, Duo shrugged as well, and continued. "So, about 'Mr. Kushrenada'. . ."  
  
* * *  
  
Standing at the head of the bed which contained the pale, unconscious form of Treize Kushrenada, Wufei fairly vibrated with constrained emotion.  
  
"Who did this?" he whispered. "Why? I'll rip their hearts out!" The older man's wounds had been hastily bandaged and checked for lodged bullets; the one still in his back had been carefully but quickly removed before the hasty council taking place in the living room had been assembled. Despite these rapid ministrations, Treize looked far from his typical poised, aristocratic self. His skin was several shades closer to white that it should have been, and sweat beaded his brow. Blood seeped slowly through his bandages; there was no telling how much more he had lost before he had reached their door. Staring at him, Wufei's furious expression faded into sorrow, and his ebony eyes gleamed with unshed tears.  
  
"Treize. . ." He reached forward and smoothed a strand of ginger hair off of the other man's forehead. Treize stirred and mumbled in his sleep, moving fitfully in the grip of some dream. His eyes flew open suddenly, without warning, and Wufei's widened slightly in alarm.  
  
At first unfocused and hazy, the General's blue gaze locked onto Wufei like a starving man's to a banquet. "Wu. . .fei. . .?" His voice sounded as weak and dazed as he looked, and Wufei stroked his fingertips from the man's damp forehead to a pale cheek, rubbing his thumb along a high cheekbone.  
  
"I'm here. Don't worry, Treize. You're safe." 'I hope,' he added silently, recalling the conversation he'd barely heard moments before and wishing he hadn't been too distracted to have a slightly more active role in Treize's defense.  
  
Blue eyes trusted him, however, and Treize slipped back into sleep without worries, the corner of his mouth turning up slightly in an expression so sweet, and so unlike his normal self, that Wufei barely restrained himself from kissing the slumbering General. Instead, he stroked Treize's cheek for a few more moments before withdrawing with reluctance and reentering the living room.  
  
". . .settled, then," he heard Quatre say as he opened the adjoining door. His heart skipped a beat, then settled down as Duo spoke again.  
  
"C'mon, Hee-chan, don't sulk. I'm sure you're gonna have lots of fun with Treizy when he wakes up."  
  
"Does this mean we've decided to keep him?" Wufei was distantly proud of how normal he managed to make his voice.  
  
Duo chuckled. "Ya make him sound like a stray puppy, 'Fei. Yeah, I guess we're keeping him for a while. Got any objections?"  
  
Wufei managed a small smirk and shook his head. "I suppose not. We should keep him under surveillance, though."  
  
"What was that?" Duo placed a hand to his ear. "I do believe you just volunteered for Treize-watching duty!"  
  
Wufei rolled his eyes, and moved to retrieve one of the battered folding chairs from the kitchen to place in Treize's room. "Whatever you say, Maxwell. I'll be sure not to let him kill any of you in your sleep. Except maybe you. . ."  
  
"Ouch," Duo mock-flinched. "Stung. I hope you're not serious, Fei- man."  
  
"As you would say, that's for me to know and you to find out." With Treize's near future assured, Wufei found it easier to slip into the comfortingly normal banter with Deathscythe's pilot, and he widened his smirk a little at the cheerful braided boy before dragging the chair he'd selected through the door and closing it behind him.  
  
* * *  
  
In a field of crimson, crimson sunlight, crimson haze in his eyes, crimson blood spread over the landscape from the countless bodies of those he had killed, blood like an impossible, gaudy lake, Treize Kushrenada stood trembling like a young sapling in a strong wind. He had been here countless times before, but each visit made it that much worse. He raised his hands, against his will, knowing and dreading what he would see (he had been here countless times before); his arms were coated from elbow to fingertips in the too-bright crimson of freshly spilled blood. Then a flash of bright silver-gold caught his eye, the first color he had seen here that was not the color of blood. He turned, knowing what he would see (he had been here countless times before) and dreading it far more than what he had already witnessed. This, this was the ultimate punishment.  
  
Two bodies, curled together in that crimson field. Only two amidst the countless thousands (and he knew their names, all their names, if not their faces), but the two that he never wished to see here. Gold and black, curled in a grotesque parody of embrace with silver and platinum. Small and lean, his whippet-quick form never to leap again into the heart of the battle that he had been born for. Taller but still slim, long hair that once swirled and floated around him now flat, caked with that cursed crimson. Treize didn't want to speak their names, for he knew, with a terrible certainty (he had been here countless times before), that saying their names would somehow make it real, more real than just a terrible nightmare from which he could not escape. But in a moment, despite all he could do, he knew that the words would burst forth from his lips with the same dreadful inevitability as the rest of this horrible vision (he had been here countless times before).  
  
He awoke, gasping with pain and fear that he normally hated to show, the names on his lips. "Miri. . .Wufei. . ."  
  
"Treize?" There was a slight drowsiness in the voice that showed its owner had been dozing, but Treize didn't care a bit. It was one of the two voices that he was desperate to hear more than anything; he would settle for one. "You awake?" Wufei blinked, focusing on his lover, noting certain details. "Nightmare?" It was something they all suffered from, sometimes, but Treize's were always the worst.  
  
Treize released a long breath in a not-quite-sigh, and nodded. Wufei smiled, just a bit, and leaned forward a bit to caress his cheek. Treize wanted more, and reached up to pull Wufei down for a kiss; he needed to hold him, stroke him, to assure himself that the dreadfully real nightmare was just that, a nightmare, but something in his shoulder gave a sudden protest, and Treize winced. Then the events of the past week came flooding back over him, and he groaned.  
  
"What?" Wufei asked. "In fact, more that just what. You disappeared for two months! Zechs and I have been worried sick! What happened, Trei?" Treize was reassured to hear the Chinese boy use his pet name, the one only Zechs and Wufei even knew he possessed, and he answered after only a moment to collect himself and shove back the pain that was rapidly making its presence known.  
  
"It's. . .a long story," Treize began. Wufei started to protest, and he held up his good hand to forestall the pilot. "Don't worry, I'm going to tell it anyway, Dragon." He smiled a little crookedly up at his lover, and continued. "About two months ago, when I 'disappeared', I was taken prisoner by Romafeller."  
  
"Prisoner?" Wufei asked, his forehead wrinkling.  
  
"Prisoner," Treize confirmed decisively. "They considered me to be something of a threat, I'm afraid. Especially after I declared my intentions to resign in a private meeting." He shook his head. "I should have done it in public. They feared, with good reason, that if I stepped down half of the soldiers would follow me, or rebel. They'd certainly lose Une and Zechs, although they may have already by this time." He shot a questioning glance and Wufei, who nodded.  
  
"Zechs quit shortly after you disappeared. Une left right after him. Both of them were accused of treason, but they've gone into hiding and evaded capture so far. Tsuberov has managed to keep the rest of the army under control, but it's been a near thing."  
  
Treize nodded, looking thoughtful, then shook himself, winced, and continued. "At first, I was placed under house arrest, but that was apparently deemed too good or too insecure for the likes of me. About three weeks ago I was moved to a prison somewhere to the north of here. I can't describe exactly where it was, but I could show you on a map or take you back if I had to. Anyway, I managed to sneak a couple of lockpicks in with me, and once I worked out the guard schedules and a few more details, I escaped. I would have done so earlier, but Tsuberov actually made a mistake in moving me to a prison. When I was under house arrest, the guards were focused solely on me. In the prison, they weren't even informed that the new prisoner was the famous Treize Kushrenada and so had no particular reason to pay special attention to me." Treize bared his teeth in an expression that was only marginally a smile. "It was a mistake I'm sure they won't forget in a hurry. Unfortunately, I was shot a few times before I managed to make the trees, enough to slow me down. I headed out a few hundred yards through the woods, then took to the trees and doubled back. I fear I left a rather spectacular blood trail on the branches, but there wasn't much I could do about that and they lost the trail once I left the ground. After that I. . .I'm afraid I don't remember too much. I knew I had to get to either you or Zechs, and I had no clue what kind of trouble Zechs was in, so I opted for you. I wasn't thinking too clearly by then, and I. . .passed out. . .a few times, but I managed to find out a few things in the next town I came to, and get rid of the prison clothes I was wearing. Fortunately for me, and by a strange coincidence, all of you were in a safehouse not too far from there. I hitched a ride with a farmer for a few miles, and I. . .suppose I must've walked the rest of the way. I really don't remember that part."  
  
"Well, you ended up here, anyway," Wufei said, trying not to think about the nightmarish journey Treize must've endured, struggling through the snow and wind and evading guards with three bullet holes in him, and sighed. "You either have the most phenomenal good luck, or we really need to work on our security."  
  
"It's not that bad," Treize reassured him. "I just asked around about any strange teenage boys making grocery runs, in particular one with a long braid and a manic attitude."  
  
"Duo," Wufei groaned. "I knew it was a mistake to let him go into town, even if we were almost out of supplies." Then he smiled, and leaned down to kiss Treize slowly and thoroughly. The ginger-haired man responded with enthusiasm, and when Wufei pulled back they were both breathless. "This once," Wufei panted. "I'll forgive him. In fact, I may have to thank him."  
  
"Please do," Treize agreed, then glanced at the digital clock beside the bed, where a number in the low am.'s flashed. "Good lord, is that the time?"  
  
Wufei glanced at it. "Yes, give or take a few minutes. You slept all day and most of the night."  
  
Treize's stomach rumbled suddenly, and its owner blinked. Wufei grinned.  
  
"Hungry?" Treize gave a wry smile, and nodded. "I'll see what I can round up. We probably don't have anything up to your *exacting* standards, though," he mocked gently. "How about. . ." he considered their limited pantry, "a ham sandwich?"  
  
"I'm hardly in a position to demand caviar, so a ham sandwich will be fine," Treize grinned a bit. "I secretly despise caviar, anyway."  
  
Wufei slid out the door, closing it gently behind him. Only then did Treize allow himself to sag, hissing in pain that he *would not* show his lover. It would only worry him and make him even more furious at Romafeller, and that might make him careless. More than anything, Treize didn't want to add Wufei's name to a list that was already far too long, so he would not allow himself to make his dragon careless, or reckless, or lessen his chances for surviving this war by even the tiniest margin.  
  
Wufei, meanwhile, slid like a ghost through the kitchen. He wasn't precisely sure how much it would take to wake up his fellow gundam pilots (except Duo, whom he knew normally slept like a log), but he was taking no chances. He retrieved a paper plate from the cupboard without a whisper of sound, and two pieces of bread were extracted from their plastic with equal stealth. Wufei then plunged into the refrigerator, retrieving the ham and a bottle of tea, before pausing to ponder. 'Let's see,' he thought, straining to remember everything Treize had ever mentioned in passing about his food preferences and blessing his own near-perfect memory. 'He doesn't mind mayonnaise, but he hates mustard, he doesn't like lettuce too much, tomatoes are good, so are pickles, but onions are something to avoid.' With this in mind, he loaded one piece of bread and covered it with the other, carefully letting the refrigerator door swing shut without a sound.  
  
Treize greeted him with a smile as he reentered the room, still moving as silently as a ghost until the door was shut. Wufei proffered the sandwich and tea with a mock-servile air, and Treize accepted them, mock- lordly. The ginger-haired man peered at the contents of the sandwich, and pouted.  
  
"What, no onions?"  
  
"I thought you didn't like them," Wufei offered, uncertain if Treize was teasing or not. His lover relieved the teenager's worries with his reply, offered with a grin.  
  
"I don't. I'm flattered you remembered, actually."  
  
"And why shouldn't I? I'm a gundam pilot, after all!" Wufei smirked as he offered the first line of their old repartee.  
  
"And this, naturally, makes you superhuman," Treize agreed easily. "I suppose we'll have to leave it there, since Miri is presumably out of range."  
  
Wufei snapped his fingers. "That reminds me! I need to tell him that you're with me. Eat while I go get my laptop." He slid out the door again without waiting for a reply. Treize, wincing a little, obeyed orders and began by unscrewing the cap of the tea bottle, a task that was complicated by his shoulder wound. As the first drops hit his tongue, he suddenly realized just how thirsty and hungry he was, and almost chugged down the rest of the tea in one gulp. He managed to maintain his control, but even so, he was halfway through both the sandwich and tea by the time Wufei returned a moment later with his laptop tucked under one arm. One black eyebrow went up as he saw how quickly Treize was devouring the food, and he smirked a bit. Treize mock-glared at him, but he only grinned in reply as he settled back into his chair and unfolded his laptop. Treize kept eating while it booted and Wufei typed a hurried message.  
  
FROM: sundance@kid.the  
  
TO: silver_kitsune@destructo.joi  
  
SUBJECT:   
  
Lone Ranger,  
  
Tigger is with me. Don't worry. Reply if you want to join us.  
  
Daemon  
  
The aliases had been established long ago, but as far as they knew no one had discovered who they referred to. Still, Wufei routed the message through a complicated series of twists that would hopefully keep anyone from tracing it. He wasn't the hacker that Heero or even Duo was, but he was still good enough. At least, he hoped so. To distract himself from this worry while Treize finished his sandwich, he scanned his saved copy of the message again, grinning at the familiar monikers as he recalled their origin.  
  
They had wanted to call Treize simply 'Ginger', but he had laughingly demanded a name with more personality. Wufei had suggested 'Tiger', and Zechs, chuckling, had opined that Treize would make a much better 'Tigger'. None of them had gotten the reference at first (Zechs had an annoying habit of pulling odd things out of the old cartoons and comics he had a secret liking for), but Wufei had maneuvered Duo (who shared Zechs's fetish) into revealing it for him and had laughed until his gut hurt in private. As far as he knew, Treize still had no idea what it meant.  
  
The 'Lone Ranger' for Zechs had come from Treize's suggestion of 'Silver'. Zechs had protested that he didn't want to be a color any more than Treize had, Wufei had sniggered and said that 'Silver' wasn't a color, it was a horse, and suggested that 'Lone Ranger' might suit him better. Especially with the mask. This had jogged Treize's memory, and they had both nearly fallen off the bed laughing with cries of "Hi ho Silver, away!" and "Who was that masked man, anyway?"; Zechs's completely clueless expression had only fuelled them further. The 'silver_kitsune' e-mail address had a complex origin that could be summed up in one simple word; Duo. The braided pilot, after declaring that their lives were entirely too much like a television show, had proceeded to write an extremely silly story in which he sent them all to China and had them fall into various cursed springs (except Heero, probably because Duo knew the 'Perfect Soldier' would *not* be amused at his lover turning him into any kind of furry animal). This apparently had something to do with another old comic, 'Ranma ½', which Wufei still didn't understand despite all the times Zechs had tried to explain it to him. Zechs had been written as a silver kitsune, a form which he thought suited him rather well. The most hilarious transformations had been those of Une into a panda, Relena into a sex-crazed, perverted teenage boy, and Dorothy into a sex-kitten. All three of them had been furious when they read the silly thing, which had made the rounds even faster than usual thanks to Duo e-mailing it to Treize and Zechs of his own accord, rather than Wufei having to sneak them a copy.  
  
Wufei's alias came simply from his old nickname of 'Dragon'. Zechs and Treize had declaimed 'Dragon' as too obvious, however, and they had substituted another mythological creature, thus coming up with 'Daemon'. Sundance@kid.the was both a play off of Zechs's 'Lone Ranger' alias, since both were old western heroes, and a result of watching too many old movies with Duo. 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid' had been too good for him to resist making a play on it.  
  
Realizing that Treize had finished eating and was watching him with a soft smile, Wufei shook himself, deleted his copy of the message, and smiled back. Then his smile slowly crumpled, his eyes brimmed with held-back tears, and he almost flung himself at Treize, hugging him as tightly as he could while being mindful of the other man's injuries.  
  
"God, I missed you," he whispered, nuzzling the base of Treize's neck, reassuring both of them with the firmness of contact. Treize wrapped his good arm around Wufei and squeezed, closing his eyes before his own tears could escape.  
  
"I've missed you too. You and Miri are the only things that keep me going, you know? More now than ever. . ." They simply held each other for several minutes, comforting and being comforted. After awhile, Treize, sniffling a bit but trying not to show it, pushed Wufei off playfully.  
  
"You know, you could get diseases from doing that. Or at least body odor. Do you have any idea how long it's been since I've had a bath?" The aristocrat wrinkled his nose disdainfully, trying not to think about it himself. He liked being clean, as well as reveling hedonistically in the pleasures of hot water and expensive soap.  
  
"We can fix that," Wufei replied, coming up with a grin of his own and wiping his eyes surreptitiously. "That is, if you don't mind a sponge bath. You can't shower with bandages, you know."  
  
"I'm not as thick as I look," Treize retorted, mock-frowning at Wufei for the affront to his intelligence. Then his expression became much more lecherous, almost a leer, and he continued. "Are you volunteering to give one to me?"  
  
Wufei pretended to look thoughtful. "Hmm. I suppose, as no one else is awake, I am the obvious choice. . ." He smirked at Treize, who was looking like the cat who had swallowed the proverbial canary. "All right then. You do realize that this is going to be painfully arousing?"  
  
Treize's Cheshire cat grin became even wider. "Oh, I think I can cope with that." 


	2. In which there is much talking

a/n: New chap! It's all due to all the lovely people who gave me reviews, so thank you all! *Throws kisses at all reviewers* In other news, I've been reading episode summaries of GW.man, is this an AU ^_^;; Oh, and for those of you who were *so* looking forward to the bath scene.I apologize, but I am in no way qualified to write smut and would probably pass out from all the blood rushing to my face (*blushblushblush*, in other words) if I tried. Add that to the fact that Treize is injured and Wufei had to end up still wearing something the next morning, and it equals no smuttiness. Ah, well, there will be many more opportunities! Also, this chapter contains several freakishly long paragraphs of dialogue. Do not be intimidated!  
  
Chapter Two: In which Duo gets a surprise after breakfast, and Wufei does a  
LOT of explaining, a.k.a. The Get Together Story  
  
Most of the time any safe house the five boys occupied together was full of the sounds of people being awake by ten o'clock in the morning. Wufei usually rose quite a bit earlier, and Duo would have much preferred to sleep until lunch time, but the general consensus was around ten, with Duo sleepily traipsing in about half an hour later than the others. When the braided boy thumped downstairs this morning, he found Quatre in the kitchen nursing a cup of coffee and a bowl of Grape-nuts over a paperback book. Sounds of the television drifted in from the living room, indicating the probable position of the other three. Duo sighed when he saw that no one had made any pancakes and pouted a bit to himself, just for practice, as he banged open a cupboard to look for cereal.  
  
Settling on Cinnamon Toast Crunch as probably containing the most sugar, he poured an oversized portion into a normal-sized bowl and carefully filled it with milk right up to the brim. Next, after slurping a couple of spoonfuls of cereal and depositing the bowl smoothly on the kitchen table across from Quatre so that a minimum of milk ended up on the floor, was coffee. Duo hooked his "Fabricati Diem, Pvnk" mug from the rack and filled it more-or-less halfway with coffee, making up the difference with milk and several quite generous spoonfuls of sugar. He then plunked himself down in front of both his cereal and Quatre, who was engrossed in his book and hadn't even noticed that Duo was in the room.  
  
"Morning, Q," Duo greeted him. Quatre didn't even look up, only grunted. Duo could tell that the noise had been a reflex rather than any sort of acknowledgement and sighed, rolling his eyes. The blond boy tuned things out to an incredible degree when he was reading anything, be it sci- fi or a textbook; even Trowa usually had to call him at least twice before he could get a polysyllabic response.  
  
Duo decided that further attempts to converse with Quatre would be a waste, and slurped down his cereal in record time. At least, for anyone else it would have been record time. For Duo, it was just the way he ate. The cereal bowl clanged into the sink, and he paused as he entered the hall, looking at the door of the room they had put Treize in. He hesitated a moment, torn between the urge to go find Heero and the urge to see if Treize was awake yet, and finally decided that his boyfriend could wait. The braided pilot crept up to the door in front of him and eased it open as quietly as he could. He slipped through carefully, without a sound (Duo believed in making use of the element of surprise whenever possible), and closed it equally silently behind him. It was only then that he turned around and saw the occupants of the bed.  
  
He froze dead in his tracks, eyes widening in shock and horror, unable at first to take in the sight he had been presented with. Wufei, the same Wufei that he had lived with and worked with and played jokes on and laughed with for months, the same Wufei that Duo had *thought* he knew, was in bed with *Treize Kushrenada*. And there was no doubt that he had gone willingly; he and Treize were snuggled together the way that Duo and Heero. . . Duo shook that analogy out of his head before it got a single word farther. He WOULD NOT think that.  
  
As the American pilot watched, horror-stricken and disbelieving, Wufei stirred and opened his eyes. His liquid black gaze settled on Treize, and the Chinese boy gave the sweetest smile that Duo had ever seen to the ginger-haired man lying next to him. His amethyst-eyed watcher felt an unexpected surge of guilt, as if he were spying on something very private and precious, but then Wufei caught sight of him. Immediately his obsidian eyes went wide and he scrambled out of bed, being careful not to disturb Treize. Duo was grateful to see that the other boy was wearing boxers; while being flashed by Wufei was not the worst way that Duo could think of to start a morning, in these circumstances it would force Duo to draw a conclusion that he was struggling very hard (against the face of recent evidence) not to draw.  
  
"Duo," Wufei started after a long, uncomfortable silence, moving backwards to clutch a bed-knob in an uncharacteristically nervous gesture, "It's not what you think."  
  
The chestnut-haired boy raised a disbelieving eyebrow and looked pointedly from Wufei, standing beside the bed wearing only his boxers, to Treize, who was apparently still asleep but had rolled over to take advantage of the warm spot that Wufei had left in his wake. The black-haired boy blushed faintly as Duo's eyes turned back towards him, making a record-breaking two exhibitions of nervousness in one morning.  
  
"All right, maybe it is what you think. But I haven't betrayed anyone, I swear!"  
  
"So explain to me how I missed the part where *sleeping with your fucking enemy* isn't betrayal, Wu-fei."  
  
The Chinese pilot flinched at Duo's deliberate pronunciation of his name; the braided boy only used anyone's full name when he was truly, truly angry, and there had been hurt as well as fury in his biting sarcasm. Wufei's hand tightened on the dark wooden bed-knob.  
  
"I haven't told him anything, Duo. Never anything about our missions, or what our plans were, or where we were. Never. I swear." His knuckles whitened, bright against the near-black wood even in the dim light cast by the morning sun through the translucent curtains of the bedroom window.  
  
"How did this happen?" Duo's arms were crossed and his voice was still flat and angry, but the hurt was receding slightly and Wufei, listening intently for any sign of reprieve, caught a hint of. . .resignation? Acceptance? Something, and Wufei began to talk, propelled for the first time since realizing that Duo was in the room by a faint hope that he might actually get through the next few minutes with his friendship with the braided boy intact.  
  
"It started after that first time I dueled with Treize. You remember?"  
  
Duo admitted, with a cautious nod, that he might recall something along those lines having occurred, yes.  
  
"After he beat me. . .I couldn't stop thinking about it. About him. I hated him then, I really did. He'd defeated me, shown me how weak I truly was for the first time in years, and I hated it. And on top of that, he'd shown me *mercy*. He thought I was so weak, so unthreatening, that he didn't even bother to kill me. At least, that's what I thought at the time. So I hated him, and I hated myself, and I thought the only way to fix it was to kill him. So, about a month later, when I was at a safehouse close to a base where intelligence said that Treize was staying, I infiltrated his quarters, in the middle of the night, with no orders of any kind.  
  
"I don't know how it happened, even now, but I managed to make my way through the base and ended up standing maybe two feet from Treize's bed without having set off any alarms or alerted any guards. So I pulled my knife (I didn't want to use a gun; that would have made too much noise), and then. . .I just. . ." Wufei shook his head, his slackened grip on the bedpost tightening again. "It was like I was suddenly standing outside myself, and I saw what an incredible hypocrite I was. I mean, I'm always talking about justice and honor and I was about to kill the most honorable opponent I'd ever fought without even waking him up, much less giving him any kind of chance to defend himself. I was standing there, with the knife in my hand, pretty much frozen, when the moon broke through the clouds (it was pretty cloudy that night, I remember) and came through the window behind me, and I saw *him*.  
  
"I don't know how I'd missed him up until then. I guess I was really focused on Treize, but still, I can't believe I didn't see him. Zechs always takes up more space than I think is humanly possible, and his hair gets everywhere." Wufei smiled fondly. "I remember once, after I'd spent the night with them, I found this really long blond hair in my. . ."  
  
"Stop, right there, please," Duo said, almost cringing. As if it weren't bad enough that Wufei seemed to be 'with' Treize, he was bringing Zechs into it! "Bad, bad picture. Get back to the moon coming through the window, you sounded marginally on track up 'til then."  
  
Wufei grinned wanly, his hand relaxing from its convulsive grip on the bed- knob. "Well, anyway, the moon caught his hair and it just. . .I don't know, lit up. And I saw it, and then I saw him, lying there looking like one of those ancient Greek gods. I mean, Treize is handsome, and he attracts people with sheer force of personality, and I love him, but Zechs is *gorgeous*. And then he started to move, and I would have frozen in my tracks then even if I hadn't already been frozen. Treize usually works too hard and stresses and sleeps like a log when we can get him to sleep at all, but Zechs. . .I swear, he wakes up if a mouse sneezes in the wall. On top of that, he has a sixth sense about people spying on him. There was one time. . ." This time, Wufei caught Duo's warning glare and smiled sheepishly. "Sorry. Back on track. So, Zechs started to wake up. He opened his eyes and looked at the ceiling for a second, and then he saw me.  
  
"Now, if I woke up in the middle of the night and saw a strange person holding a knife over my lover, I'd jump them on the spot, no questions asked. But Zechs didn't, and to this day he's never been able to explain to me why. Maybe he saw me hesitating, maybe it was just a hunch, but instead of attacking me he just sat up slowly and carefully, as if I were a wild animal he didn't want to frighten off. He told me later that every muscle in his body was tense enough to hurt right then, but it didn't show. He looked completely calm and controlled.  
  
"For a while we just stared at one another, and the silence stretched out. Then Zechs smiled, the tiniest smile possible, and said, 'I hope your arm isn't getting tired yet.' Because I'd been holding the knife over Treize the whole time, you see. And somehow, with that smile and that one sentence, there was no longer any possibility of me killing either of them. I lowered my knife and sheathed it, feeling like a complete idiot and cursing myself for my weakness. I would have walked off right then, but Zechs spoke again. 'I'm Zechs Merquise.' That stopped me, sure enough. I mean, I knew who Zechs Merquise was, but I hadn't connected the masked man who was always fighting Heero to the man in the bed. But now I made the leap, and I was shocked. It was like the fighter and. . .whoever this was were two completely different people. Zechs with his mask on is inscrutable and stoic, Zechs without his mask is. . ." Wufei shook his head. "still stoic, or at least he tries to be, but his eyes give him away every time. He lets a lot more of himself show without that thing; it's like he opens up and lets go of himself a little. Plus, he's incredibly handsome. Anyway. I decided I owed him some kind of answer, so I bowed, just a bit, and said, 'Chang Wufei'. Just two words. Then Treize woke up.  
  
"Zechs gave him the most beautiful smile I'd ever seen, and Treize smiled back, and I had a weird feeling, like I wanted them to smile like that at *me*. I shook it off pretty fast, though, because then Treize saw me and his smile changed. He didn't stop smiling completely, though, and then he said, 'Do you want me to go and get my sword, or should I go back to sleep?' I didn't answer, mostly because Treize sat up as while he was talking and the sheets slid down and, well, he. . ."  
  
"STOP RIGHT THERE!" Duo yelped. "I so did not need that mental picture! Bad, bad, bad!"  
  
Wufei actually laughed at that, and Duo gave him a rueful little smirk in return, uncrossing his arms. There was a pause as the braided boy, apparently resigned to the fact that this was going to be a long story, fetched the chair Wufei had been sitting in last night from the corner of the room and perched himself backwards in it before turning his attention back to the storyteller. "So, keep going! Just. . .skip that particular part."  
  
The Chinese boy continued, grinning. "Okay, so, I didn't answer him, just bowed, a little lower then when I'd bowed to Zechs, and left, blushing like a maniac. I stopped outside the door though, and I heard them talking a little. 'You know,' Treize said, 'That's the second time I've met that boy and I don't even know his name.' I could almost see Zechs smiling when he answered. 'It's Chang Wufei.' Then I left, properly, down the hall and out of the base.  
  
"After that I didn't see either of them for about a month or so. We were never in or near the same place at the same time, and I was always busy on missions anyway. But I couldn't stop thinking about them, both of them. I knew I should be thinking about how to kill them, but instead all I could get through my head was how I was going to see them again. I told myself I was stupid and weak at least a hundred times a day that month, but it didn't seem to make any difference. And then I ended up at a safehouse, with Quatre, I think, about six miles from a camp where I knew Zechs was stationed.  
  
"Well, after a month of waiting, I wasn't about to let an opportunity like that pass me by, so I snuck out of the house when Quatre was asleep. . .god, that makes me sound like a teenager going out after curfew. . .anyway, I headed for the camp. I got in, actually managed to get all the way into Zechs's tent without anyone even seeing me (their security was so lax, I couldn't believe it), and found him. He was sitting at a computer, typing something, I didn't see what, with his mask-helmet thing lying on the table next to him. I just stood behind him, not saying anything, for a few seconds, until he stopped typing and rubbed his temples.  
  
" 'Head hurt?' I asked. It just popped out; I hadn't meant to say anything. Zechs sighed and said, 'Unfortunately, quite a lot,' and then he turned around and smiled at me, a little rueful smile. Remember what I said about him having the sixth sense about people spying on him? He wasn't even surprised to see me, he didn't so much as twitch when I spoke. It's really incredible. He even caught you a couple of times, Duo."  
  
Duo frowned thoughtfully, chin resting on his arms, which were in turn resting on the back of the chair. "I don't remember him ever catching me."  
  
Wufei grinned, an honest-to-goodness grin this time. "That's because he didn't do anything about it. Wasn't there a time when you were eavesdropping and you saw him turn around and look right at you?"  
  
Duo nodded, slowly. "Yeah. . .yeah, I remember that. Scared the crap out of me, I thought the game was up for sure."  
  
"Well, it would have been, if Zechs had any inclination to turn you in. Which I guess brings me back to my story."  
  
There was vigorous nodding from the boy in the chair. "Yes, *please* let it bring you back to your story, O Off-topic One."  
  
Wufei rolled his eyes, but continued. "Anyway, he smiled at me, and I was completely. . .clueless, I guess. I mean, what was I going to say to him? 'Hi, I find myself strangely attracted to you, any idea why? Besides the fact that you're incredibly gorgeous, of course.' I would have sounded like a complete idiot, so I just stood there looking at him, feeling like a deer in the headlights. Not to mention a complete idiot. Zechs could probably tell, so he started talking, not about anything that I didn't want to talk about, and he didn't ask why I was there, which was something even I didn't know. No, he just asked whether I wanted a cup of coffee. I said I liked tea better, and why was he drinking coffee this time of night anyway? Which got us going, and in a few minutes we were talking like we'd known each other for years about stupid stuff like the merits of tea versus coffee, and the dangers of sleep deprivation. It was uncanny. You of all people should know, Duo, that I don't exactly open up to people, but with him, it was. . .different. I couldn't tell you what, or how exactly, but with him and Treize it was always easy to just let go and be myself, and that's something I'm not good at at all, normally. Anyway, the conversation somehow got around to Quatre and his caffeine addiction, which led me up to all of you. I didn't tell him we were Gundam pilots, but I think he guessed. We swapped a lot of stories; I'd tell him about some stunt Heero pulled, or your latest practical joke, and he'd tell me something stupid Treize had done as a kid, like the time they were messing around in Zechs's tree house and Treize fell out and broke his arm while he was trying to reach one of the higher branches. I hadn't realized how long they'd known each other until he told me that story; I mean, they've been friends practically since they were babies. It made me feel kind of like an intruder sometimes, like I was an outsider because they had all these memories of each other and stories about that kind of thing and I didn't know any of it. It was funny, though, hearing Zechs talk about it- since Treize was older, he was always pulling all kinds of stupid stunts trying to impress Zechs, stuff I just can't picture Treize doing unless Zechs is talking about it. Then I can almost see how they both were, then. . ." Wufei trailed off. Duo waited for a second, then cleared his throat pointedly.  
  
"Cute as this trip down memory lane undoubtedly is, I don't think you've gotten to the end of the story yet. So, you visited Zechs and you clicked. Next?"  
  
Wufei blinked, coming back to the here and now. "Oh, right. Sorry. Well, without going into. . .embarrassingly sappy detail, we talked until almost sunrise, then I hightailed it back to the safehouse before Quatre woke up. It was only about a week after that when I ended up yet again just a few miles from where one of them was staying; Treize, this time. By then I'd pretty much forgotten about hating myself or thinking about wanting to kill them. I mean, sometimes I'd think about us being enemies, and feel guilty, but mostly I just wanted to see them, either of them. So, I snuck out to visit Treize (again, sounds like a curfew-breaking kid). It seemed like I knew him already, even though we'd only met twice, once to duel and once when we didn't exchange more than one sentence. It was all of Zechs's stories that pulled that off; it's probably why he told them in the first place. Anyway, Treize wasn't at his computer by the time I got up there, which was pretty late, but he wasn't in bed either. He was doing paperwork, looking about half-asleep and really tired. Zechs and Treize both do a heck of a lot more deskwork kind of stuff than we do, but I sometimes think Treize does more than anybody in the *world*. When he saw I was there, he blinked (which was more of a surprised reaction than I'd gotten from Zechs, anyway), and then he smiled, like he was actually happy to see me. It was kind of. . .strange. I'd made Treize smile, and. . .some part of me. . .wanted him to keep smiling. Especially since he was looking so worn out. So I teased him. I mean, I didn't really know much about him, or anything, and I'm not nearly as good at teasing people as you, but I had lots of ammunition from my talk with Zechs, so I teased him about that stuff. And he teased me back. We. . .bantered, I think is probably the best word for it. And then we just talked, and after we'd had a particularly good laugh about a story he told me about Zechs when he was about three and got into his father's office and smeared ink from the fountain pens all over everything, he stretched, and smiled at me, and said "I haven't been this relaxed since the last time Zechs was here." Then, all of a sudden, I got shy. Well, not shy, exactly, just a little guilty thinking that here was my enemy, right in front of me, and instead of trying to kill him, I was making him laugh as best I could. He must've seen it, because he asked me what was wrong. I just shook my head, though. I didn't think I could even put into words what exactly was going on in my head, much less do it without spilling the beans about anything. And then he said, "You know, even if you are a Gundam pilot, which I highly suspect you are, I don't care. I won't ask you to betray anyone, or tell us anything you don't want to tell us. I. . .I'm not sure what it is, but. . ." He trailed off there, like he couldn't quite put into words what he wanted to say, and something has to be pretty darn complicated if Treize, master of eloquence, can't get it out. That was the first time I guessed that he and Zechs felt something like what I was feeling, and it made me. . .bashful. I don't know why. Anyway, I bowed and left, right then, and it was about two months before I saw them again, and then they were together, in bed, like they'd been the first time. Treize woke up first, which almost never happens, and when he saw me. . .he looked. . .relieved. And hopeful. "I thought you weren't coming back," he said, and I. . .melted. Then Zechs woke up. He looked from me to Treize and back." Wufei grinned. "Then he said, "Look, are you coming to bed, or what?" You can probably guess the rest."  
  
"Yup," Duo said thoughtfully, then, after a long pause, he sighed and smirked at his friend. "Well, I guess I can't blame you too much for attracting pretty boys like flies to honey, even if the pretty boys in question are on the wrong side. So, what's T-man doing here?"  
  
"An excellent question," a new voice from the direction of the bed interjected, and the boys turned to see Treize propped up on his good elbow and watching them with an amused gaze. "However, if you're finished with that quite sweet and nostalgic stroll down memory lane, I need to go to the bathroom rather badly and find myself unable to walk there unaided at the moment. Once I return, I assure you I'll tell all the gory details, Mr. Maxwell."  
  
"How long have you been awake?" Duo demanded as Wufei took the hint and helped his lover out of bed. "And it's Duo, not Mr. Maxwell, that makes me feel really old, like somebody's dad or something."  
  
"Long enough," Treize grunted as he moved. "Since the part where Wufei and Zechs were trading stories, including embarrassing childhood ones about me. I'll have to do something about that when I see him again."  
  
Wufei got Treize to the bathroom and shut the door behind his lover, leaving himself alone with Duo. He gave the braided boy a rather rueful look. "So, am I forgiven?"  
  
"Baka," Duo told him fondly. "Didn't I just say you were forgiven, before he of the aristocratically arched nose butted in?"  
  
Wufei smiled, relieved. At that moment, his laptop began to vibrate, buzzing against the shelf where he had set it. The boy's face lit up and he dove for it, flipping it open and settling on the edge of the bed to peruse the machine.  
  
"You have a buzzer for e-mail?" Duo asked incredulously, correctly guessing what the vibrating computer signaled.  
  
"Not exactly," Wufei answered distractedly. "I set it to go off for two e-mail addresses only."  
  
Duo made the connection. "I'm guessing the owner of one of said addresses is here, and so Sexy Zechsy just sent you a message. Have you told him that Treize is with us?"  
  
"Last night," the Chinese boy confirmed, nodding. "I couldn't very well leave him dangling; he's been at least as worried as I have."  
  
Duo moved over to read over Wufei's shoulder as the reply popped up on the screen.  
  
TO: sundance@kid.the  
  
FROM: silver_kitsune@destructo.joi  
  
SUBJECT:   
  
Of course I want to join you! Tell me your location, *please,* if you can. What's Tigger's status? I swear, Daemon, you'd better get me there as soon as you possibly can!  
  
Lone Ranger  
  
Duo blinked, re-read the message, and burst out laughing. "Tigger? *Tigger*?! Triezy's code-name is *Tigger*?? That's *great*!"  
  
"What?" Treize demanded from his position leaning against the bathroom doorframe, where he was observing the proceedings. "What's so funny?"  
  
"N-nevermind," Duo giggled, attempting to get a grip on himself. "It's nothing. Whooh. 'Tigger.' Heh." With a final deep breath, he got back under control. "So, do I have permission to tell the others that the most honorable stripy one is back in the land of the living?"  
  
"Yeah, I guess," Wufei answered. In the doorway, Treize's eyebrows drew together in puzzlement and he mouthed "Stripy one?" to himself before shrugging and starting to limp cautiously back towards the bed. Duo left the room, still grinning, as Wufei went to his lover and helped him make his way across the room, where the older man eased himself into a sitting position on the edge of the bed. They heard Duo's cheerful voice ring out in the hall.  
  
"Hey guys! Str- I mean, T-man's awake! You got stuff you wanna ask him, or what?"  
  
Treize smiled a little ruefully. "Let the interrogation begin," he said with a sigh. "I hope I make it out alive." 


	3. In which Paranoia abounds

A/N: Wow, yet another late chapter, huh? Thanks to the great reviewers, especially the latest ones; ya'll gave me the impetus to keep going! The shameful truth is that after my computer crashed and I lost all but an incomplete printout of my outline for this story I. . .I. . .okay, I was going to quit. But your lovely reviews gave me strength! Like a magic potion, they uplifted me! :P So, here we go. A chapter in which not very much happens. Except Heero being pissy. And Zechs. But take heart! I promise thee laser tag in chapters to come! Um, and possibly, a plot will start developing amid all this pointlessness!  
  
Disclaimer: I. . .I. . .I admit it! I (*sniff*)...much as it pains me, I REALLY DON'T OWN GUNDAM WING!!! WAAAAHHHH!!!  
  
Chapter Three: In Which Paranoia and Missions Abound and Lunch is Made.  
  
Half an hour later, Treize was looking surprisingly relaxed. That is, he was looking surprisingly relaxed as far as Quatre, Trowa, Heero, and Duo were concerned. Wufei, however, could see the stress and tension hovering just under the calm façade. Not that he felt any different; the Chinese boy was hiding it well, but he knew that if this session went on much longer, he was going to snap and break Heero's neck. Knowing that Duo would kill him didn't make the thought any less sweet.  
  
It wasn't that Heero was doing anything wrong, exactly. He was just being his usual self; one *extremely* paranoid, annoyingly suspicious bastard. He had obviously spent time on his laptop formulating the questions he was asking, which were covering and re-covering the same ground; obviously in the hope that he would catch Treize out in a lie. Every time the Japanese pilot jumped on one of Treize's answers, Wufei's muscles jumped as well. He thought he was probably going to develop a twitch from being so permanently on edge.  
  
Quatre had been watching the whole performance with some concern. His erratic empathy was cooperating for once, so he knew that Wufei was unhappy and on edge; he just couldn't tell why. This didn't stop him from suggesting a break once he started sensing concern from Duo on top of exhaustion from Treize and a positive wave of murderous frustration from Wufei. Whatever the cause, if they didn't stop soon Quatre had a feeling that Wufei would lose his fierce self-control and do something permanent to Heero.  
  
"Guys," he broke in softly, as Heero was taking a breath to continue badgering Treize about the answer he'd given to the latest question. "Why don't we take a break? We've been doing this for half an hour; we can give Mr. Kushrenada a while to recover and reconvene in a few minutes."  
  
Heero growled slightly, but acquiesced. Trowa, who had been sitting silently throughout the interview with only the occasional interjection when he felt Heero was getting out of hand, rose and left the room without a word. Treize, Wufei, and Duo all shot Quatre surreptitious looks of gratitude, which the blonde boy pretended not to see as he left the room.  
  
"I'll stay in here and guard T-man, OK?" Duo called after the others. Wufei, who'd been hesitating between stalking off to confront Heero and staying with Treize, smiled his thanks; Duo just shrugged dismissively.  
  
"No problem, 'Fei. Go have a good fight with my pig-headed boyfriend; I know you're dying to rip him a new one."  
  
"I don't doubt you'd appreciate it," Wufei said dryly, then gave Treize a quick kiss before heading after the others into the safe house's main room.  
  
* * *  
  
"I don't trust him."  
  
Quatre sighed, Wufei growled, and Trowa simply said nothing. The four boys were gathered in the living room in variations on the theme of 'sitting' in the key of 'we are having a meeting'. Predictably, the first words out of Heero's mouth were *not* in Treize's favor.  
  
"Really?" Wufei retorted sarcastically. "I would never have guessed based on your gentle-and-trusting-as-a-lamb interrogation methods." He let a bit more of his irritation show. "What possible reason would he have to lie to us, Yui? His own men imprisoned him and then shot him! He doesn't have anywhere else to go!"  
  
Heero's eyes narrowed. "We have only his word on that."  
  
"Personally," Quatre put in, "I've always been of the opinion that Mr. Kushrenada is an honorable man. Not always a merciful or tolerant one, but certainly an honorable and trustworthy one."  
  
Mentally, Wufei thanked the Bodhisattva for Quatre. Without the blonde pilot's calming influence, he and Yui would have killed each other long since. It helped, too, that Quatre seemed to be on Wufei's side in this particular fight. Outwardly, the Chinese boy didn't let his expression change.  
  
"Exactly what I've always said, and may I remind you that, out of all of you, I have the most experience in dealing face-to-face with Tr. . .Kushrenada." Wufei cursed his slip, but it was so seldom that he ever discussed Treize with his fellow pilots! It was hard to say the right things and keep the right balance of hostility mixed with trust in his voice and expression, especially when two-thirds of him was still vibrating with rage towards Romafeller, and a good part of the rest wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed with Treize and keep reassuring himself that the man was really, truly here, back with him, and more-or-less intact.  
  
"That may be so, but. . ." Heero was cut off by an insistent beeping from his laptop. The brown-haired boy leaned forward to the coffee table, where his prized computer had been settled, and flipped it open. He growled in frustration.  
  
"I've got a mission."  
  
Instantly, the other three were all business, even Wufei putting his frustration temporarily in a back cupboard of his mind. "How urgent?" Trowa asked.  
  
"I'm leaving now. J wants me to check out a base in Siberia; a lot of mobile forces have been massing there lately and there's nothing in the official reports to explain it."  
  
Wufei nodded, keeping his expression impassive although inwardly he couldn't have been more pleased; with Yui out of the way, he could bring Quatre and Trowa around to trusting Treize and they could all gang up on 01 when he returned. Heero, looking slightly angry but mostly resigned, clicked his laptop closed, unplugged it from the wall, and proceeded outside to get Wing in order before he told Duo goodbye.  
  
* * *  
  
In the small bedroom occupied by Treize, an awkward silence had descended. Duo finally sighed, shaking his head. "This is stupid."  
  
Treize raised an aristocratic eyebrow inquisitively, and. . .Duo burst out laughing. Both eyebrows of the former Oz leader descended in genuine puzzlement. "What's so funny?"  
  
"N-nothing," Duo grinned, swallowing giggles. "Just had a flashback. Nothing to- heh - ahem! Worry about."  
  
"This has something to do with that obscure nickname Zechs and Wufei thought up for me, doesn't it?"  
  
Treize watched as Duo turned quite an interesting shade of red trying to stifle a dangerous set of guffaws. "N-no!" he finally managed to squeak, "Why - ha! Wh-Why would you think that?"  
  
"What is a 'Tigger', anyway?" Treize asked, seemingly quite unconcerned, although his eyes held a suspicious glint. "I really don't see how it can be so amusing."  
  
"Sometime, I'll let you watch the show, T-man," Duo promised, color returning to something more approximately normal. "You'll understand."  
  
"Hmm." Silence descended again. This time, Duo broke it quite promptly, and with more confidence.  
  
"So, how did you manage to hook 'Fei?"  
  
"Blunt, aren't you, Maxwell?" Treize grinned, then turned serious. "To be honest, I have not the slightest idea."  
  
Now it was Duo's turn to raise an eyebrow. "What, it was an accident?"  
  
"Accident is. . ." Treize sought for a term, then gave a half-shrug. "Probably the best word to use, actually. It was definitely one of the most fortunate accidents I've ever had, though."  
  
"Details, please." Treize looked at him inquisitively; Duo just grinned. "Hey, I've heard 'Fei's side of things, now it's your turn. Oh, and just so you know, 'Fei's one of my best friends. If you hurt him, I'll beat you to death with a shovel."  
  
Surprisingly, Treize only smiled. "Trust me, if I hurt Wufei, I doubt there will be a shortage of volunteers to beat me to death with a shovel. Starting with myself, if that makes any sense."  
  
Deciding that no reply was needed for Treize to continue, Duo settled for looking encouraging and hoping the ginger-haired man would take the hint.  
  
Treize let out a long sigh, then looked thoughtful. "It started with the duel, of course. Wufei probably told you the same thing; pretty much everything starts with the duel. Really, for me it was a case of fascination at first sight. He was so. . .volcanic, I suppose. It was amazing to me that one slight body could hold that much passion, even if it was all fury towards me. So after I beat him, I let him go, not because he was weak- do you have any idea how hard it was for Zechs and I to break him of the whole "I am weak and unworthy" complex, by the way? Took us *months*. Anyway- it wasn't because he was weak, but just because I didn't want to kill him. Probably extremely stupid of me, but there it is. And then he started turning up, every few months, and I. . .liked him. I really did. He was so young, but he seemed so. . .mature beyond his years. He was someone I could talk to, *really* talk to, and I didn't have very many people like that around." Treize frowned. "That's not even exactly it, but even I can't put it into words, precisely. After I so much as told him that I knew he was a Gundam pilot, that I didn't care, and that I was. . .falling in love with him, and he left. . .I was scared. I hadn't realized until then how much I cared, even though I'd only seen him a grand total of three times."  
  
"So, you love him?" For once in his life, Duo appeared to be completely serious.  
  
"Yes." Treize's answer came without a trace of hesitation. The braided pilot studied him carefully for a moment, then broke back into his usual grin.  
  
"Well that's good. Because, you know, brains and blood and stuff? Really hard to clean off of shovels."  
  
Usually, this typical Duo silliness wouldn't have been enough to make Treize laugh, but it had been a long, long month or two. A chuckle escaped from the ginger-haired man, and Duo joined in. It was just then, with predictably bad timing, that Heero, opened the door.  
  
"Duo, I'm. . ." He stopped, practically frozen, as both of them cut off rather guiltily in mid laugh, and cobalt blue eyes narrowed. Duo could *see* him trying to decide whether to march out or demand an explanation, and the violet-eyed pilot heaved an internal sigh. Heero was a wonderful boyfriend, even leaving out the great sex, but Duo also thought that for an unreasonably large percentage of the time, Heero was the solar system's most sensitive pain in the ass.  
  
"I have a mission." Heero's voice had gone cold, and Duo's heart sank. This was the last thing he needed. The Japanese pilot stalked out of the room, and the braided boy cursed silently.  
  
"Sorry."  
  
Duo turned to look with some surprise at Treize, who wore a genuinely penitent expression. The teenager sighed, then buried his frustration. "Look. . .don't worry about it, okay? Be right back." With that, Duo got up and jogged out of the room after his boyfriend.  
  
"Heero! Get back here, you dumb ass!" Heero's back stiffened even more, and Duo cursed himself, this time. He didn't have an ounce of tact in his body; neither did Heero, and what they didn't have was exactly what they needed right now. Quatre shot the two boys a puzzled look as they strode through the living room, Heero resolutely ignoring Duo and Duo resolutely pursuing him. The front door slammed behind them, and the three pilots in the living room exchanged glances.  
  
A sigh from the entrance to the hall pulled their heads around. Treize was standing in the doorway, leaning heavily on a doorjamb and looking...disheveled. And rather upset. The sight of him alone was enough to make Wufei want to jump his bones then and there, regardless of whatever problems Heero and Duo happened to be having, but the Chinese boy restrained himself for the sake of his two witnesses. Quatre was the one who rose, looking concerned.  
  
"Mr. Kushrenada, you really shouldn't be. . ."  
  
"I apologize." Treize cut the blonde boy off mid-sentence. "Whatever problems Maxwell and Yui are having are because of me. I would say I should never have come here," he chuckled mirthlessly, hiding pain, and it was all Wufei could do to keep from running to him then and there, "but I have nowhere else to go. So, again, I apologize." With that, he inclined his head to the three pilots and turned to limp carefully back to his bedroom. Wufei, after shooting a positively murderous obsidian glare towards the door that Yui had disappeared through, caught up to his lover and supported him down the hall, no longer caring what Trowa or Quatre might think of this display. He had had just about enough of the hiding, lying, and other assorted forms of bullshit which were quickly developing into a trademark of this particular day.  
  
* * *  
  
Wufei was just sitting down after helping Treize back to bed when they heard the slam of the front door. The two exchanged glances, and Wufei rose to his feet again.  
  
"I'll be right back," he assured Treize, and slid out of the room quietly.  
  
Duo was sprawled on one end of the couch as Wufei entered the living room, head tilted back, eyes closed, and an expression of frustrated weariness on his normally cheery features. Quatre was watching him worriedly, and even Trowa looked concerned.  
  
"Hey." Wufei broke the tense silence gently, and Duo opened his eyes to glance over at the black-haired boy. "You okay?"  
  
Duo laughed harshly. "Yeah, fine, great, except that I think I just alienated my boyfriend for life." He leaned back, closing his eyes again. "Damn Heero. Damn me, too, come to think of it. Both of us stubborn bastards and neither of us willing to forget it for a second."  
  
Wufei sighed. "I'm sorry. What set him off?"  
  
Duo opened his eyes to roll them in exasperation. "Nothing! Jeez, he finds me joking around with T-man and acts like I'm committing a freakin' crime! Paranoid asshole. . ."  
  
Wufei groaned internally, and hoped Treize couldn't hear this from his bedroom. If he did, he'd be back out here apologizing -again- after Wufei had just gotten him back to bed, and it wouldn't do him or Duo any good, anyway.  
  
"Duo. . ." Quatre started, sounding worried, but Duo cut him off.  
  
"It's okay, Q. I'll. . .get over it. I hope to *God* he will too. Damn. . ."  
  
"He will." This reassuring voice, surprisingly, was Trowa. The green-eyed boy even cracked a slight smile. "He may be a paranoid asshole, but he's not too stupid to know what he's got in you."  
  
Duo smiled, albeit wearily, at Trowa. "Thanks, man. Now I just have to talk myself into believing that and I'll be free and clear."  
  
They all sat quietly for a moment, just existing, before Wufei heaved a sigh and levered himself to his feet.  
  
"I'm going to check on Treize." The Chinese boy noticed that he'd slipped again, but couldn't bring himself to really care. "Keep me updated on any missions." With that, he slipped out of the room, down the hall, and back to his boyfriend. Behind his back, Quatre looked confused as his empathy told him something about the black-haired pilot that he knew couldn't possibly be real.  
  
* * *  
  
When Duo opened the door to Treize's bedroom an hour or so later, he found his friend and the ginger-haired ex-Oz general deep in conversation and smiling faintly at each other.  
  
'At least someone around here is cheerful,' the braided pilot thought, then attracted the pair's attention with the accepted stratagem of clearing his throat. Both turned to look at him.  
  
"Q and Tro have a mission," Duo announced without preamble. "In fact, they should be leaving right about. . ." He made a show of listening for takeoff noises which he couldn't possibly have heard, "Now." He grinned faintly at them. "Just you and me now, guys."  
  
Treize frowned slightly. "Didn't 01 just receive a mission? Is it normal for you all to be so. . ."  
  
"Busy?" Wufei cut in dryly. "Depends. Since you disappeared from Oz and Romafeller officially took over, we've been a lot busier than usual."  
  
"You can say that again," Duo agreed, plunking himself down on Treize's bed. The older man had drawn himself up into a sitting position at the head of the bed, supported by pillows, with Wufei facing him from the middle of the aforementioned piece of furniture. The black-haired boy moved so that he could see both Treize and Duo without giving himself whiplash, and settled back down.  
  
"So," Duo continued, his normal grin slipping back across his face. "Anyone for lunch?"  
  
"Didn't you just eat breakfast. . ." Wufei checked the digital clock beside the bed, "Two and a half hours ago?"  
  
"So?" Duo asked innocently. "I have a fast metabolism. Besides, *you* didn't eat breakfast. Too busy cuddling with T-man, as I recall. . ."  
  
To his surprise, the pillow that hit him in the face had been absentmindedly lobbed not by Wufei, but by Treize. "Hey!" he exclaimed, pouting. In reply he received only an inquisitive ginger eyebrow raised innocently at him. Duo pouted. Wufei rolled his eyes.  
  
"Okay, okay, break it up, we're having lunch."  
  
* * *  
  
Lunch turned out to be ramen, which was just about the only thing Duo and Wufei were absolutely sure they could cook without scorching either the kitchen or themselves the first time. Treize had wanted to come to the kitchen and watch them, probably in order to snicker at their culinary incompetence, but Wufei had been dead set on him staying in bed. After quite a lot of what was basically whining in the guise of well-reasoned arguments, however, Treize had won a compromise from his boyfriend and was currently ensconced on the couch in the living room, watching the news. At least, when Duo had left the living room, Treize had been watching the news. The sounds now audible from the kitchen sounded more along the lines of anvils predictably smashing an unsuspecting coyote, possibly named Wile E.  
  
The ramen was ready in only a few minutes, and the three current inhabitants of the safehouse had just settled in the living room to eat it when a thunderous sound made itself heard over the television. Their heads jerked up; all three of them recognized it immediately. It was the sound of a mobile suit engine.  
  
* * *  
  
Zechs rubbed his eyes, shaking his head and blinking to try and force them to focus properly on the glowing screen which was informing him of his current location. It had been nearly fifty hours since he'd last slept, and although he could go (and had gone) without sleep for a week, he couldn't prevent the effects of sleep deprivation from beginning to make themselves known. But he was almost there now, only a few minutes away, and he wouldn't allow himself to sleep until he'd seen Treize with his own eyes and knew that he was safe.  
  
In the distance, almost hidden among the snow-covered trees, a house was rapidly approaching. The pilot checked its coordinates with the ones Wufei had given him.  
  
"That's it," he whispered, and gunned Tallgeese forward. There wasn't much space to land in the forest of evergreens, but a clearing beckoned, about two hundred yards south of the house. Zechs noticed Deathscythe concealed in another clearing, further away, skillfully hidden under branches and snow. If he hadn't been so close and so tense that he was jumping at shadows, he would never have noticed the black Gundam.  
  
Dismissing the machine for now, he came in above the clearing he'd selected, got Tallgeese and its burden aligned with the open ground, and cut the jets. The suit landed with a thump; it was a very sloppy maneuver, and normally Zechs would never have done anything so ungraceful, but now he was in a hurry. His fingers flew over the straps of his harness; he was out of the mobile suit almost before it finished settling into the frozen ground and dashed towards the house he'd observed without bothering about any kind of camouflage.  
  
Trees gave way to cleared ground, a perimeter of about three hundred feet in front of the house and one hundred around the sides and back. Zechs would have mentally complimented the pilots on this security measure, but as soon as he came within sight of the house the entire force of his attention focused on the tall, ginger-haired figure standing on the porch and the smaller, black-haired one supporting it. From Wufei's perspective, Zechs seemed to fly up the path in only a few strides; for the blonde- haired man, it seemed to take forever until he mounted the steps and stopped, his eyes boring intensely into Treize's. The older man smiled, blue eyes full of undefined emotion, and Zechs crossed the last few feet between them and hugged Treize with all his might.  
  
The former general winced, but hugged him back as Zechs drew Wufei into the embrace. Duo watched from the doorway, feeling vaguely uncomfortable but not enough to look away from the reunion. After the braided pilot considered that a sufficient amount of time had passed, he cleared his throat politely.  
  
"Sweet as all this is, my ramen is getting cold. You can have some too if you hurry, Zechsy."  
  
Reluctantly, the three withdrew somewhat from each other's arms. Zechs offered Duo a hesitant smile, his arm still around Treize's shoulders.  
  
"Ramen would be good. Then I'd like to sleep for a few days or so." Wufei grinned in understanding; then the blonde pilot suddenly frowned, raising an eyebrow. "'Zechsy,' Maxwell?"  
  
"Leave it," Treize warned him affably. "He called me the... what was it? Ah- the 'most honorable stripy one' this morning."  
  
Zechs blinked once or twice; then the reference settled over him like a particularly hilarious cloak. The blonde man doubled over laughing as Wufei and Duo chortled. Treize, on the clueless hand, merely looked put out.  
  
"*What* is so funny??" 


	4. In which there is much silliness

A/N: It's finally done! I bet you readers had given up hope, huh? Well, I may write slow, but I don't surrender! So, I present to you...a new chapter! (Don't hope for much through November, however; I'll be participating in NaNoWriMo. Clueless? Try this; go to and check it out!)

Disclaimer: Don't own the G-boys, don't own Zechsy, don't own Trieze. I do, however, reserve the right to their respective nicknames

Chapter Four: In which recovery commences, laser tag is played, and trouble comes home

Zechs, in fact, was even more tired than he'd thought, once the adrenaline and the relief at finding Treize alive and well wore off. He managed to get through a bowl of chicken-flavored ramen, although Wufei had to rouse him twice to keep him from nodding off and dunking his face in it. After the meal, the black-haired pilot shepherded his half-asleep blonde boyfriend into the bedroom where Treize had been; as soon as his head touched the pillow, Zechs was out. Wufei attempted to use the same technique with Treize, only to meet considerable resistance.

"I slept for practically all of yesterday, and most of last night as well. At this rate, my muscles will atrophy even more than they already have."

"Well, you are injured," Duo pointed out from the kitchen table, still devouring his second bowl of ramen.

"Exactly," Wufei agreed, meeting Treize's level blue stare with a black one. "So you should be recuperating."

"I can recuperate just as well in the living room as I can in the bedroom, and the surroundings are considerably more intellectually stimulating."

Duo snorted into his ramen, then choked. After turning an interesting shade of red while both arguers watched him with slight concern, he managed to swallow and gasped, "Translation- Stripy wants to be in the living room 'cause that's where the TV is. I had no idea you were so shallow, T-man!"

"Shallow?" The tone of injured innocence in Treize's voice was just slightly overdone. "I simply said the environment would be more stimulating. Also, I wouldn't want to disturb Zechs, since he's obviously missed a few nights of rest and he's quite a light sleeper."

Wufei frowned, sighed, rolled his eyes...and acquiesced. As he supported Treize out of the kitchen, Duo caught the ginger-haired man's eyes and made a whip-cracking motion with one hand. Blue eyes widened innocently- but the mouth below them curved in a smug little grin. The braided boy chuckled silently as Treize turned away and settled himself on the couch; only a small half-height partition wall separated the kitchen from the living room, so the area between the two was fairly open.

The morning passed quietly; only one small pillow fight broke out, which was an all-time low for a house containing Duo on an afternoon with nothing to do but snark at daytime television. Treize, despite his earlier protestations that he'd gotten enough sleep yesterday, quietly dozed off on Wufei after about forty-five minutes of this. Soon after, Duo gave up on the stubbornly dull television and slipped outside, ostensibly to go 'visit' Deathscythe. However, driven by his insatiable curiosity about all things mecha, he quickly ended up in front of Tallgeese, parked blatantly in the clearing that Heero had vacated earlier that morning. Duo sighed.

'_He didn't even bother to camouflage it. Zechs has got it bad. Guess I'll have to take care of it myself.'_ The braided boy wasn't really displeased; at least it gave him something to do besides hang out in a safe-house where everyone (including Wufei; Duo had seen the other pilot nod off just before he'd left the house) was asleep. As he was rounding Tallgeese to get the extra camo net he had stashed in Deathscythe, however, he noticed something else.

'_That's...another mobile suit. Well, duh, but...whose mobile suit? Looks kinda like Tallgeese...' _Duo circled the blue and white, gold-crested suit, inspecting it. '_Huh. Maybe Zechs brought it for...Treize? I guess that would make sense. I wonder how good Treize is, anyway? I've never seen him pilot anything...'_

Shrugging, Duo put off his speculation and struck out for his own mobile suit. '_Right, camouflage. This is supposed to be a safe house, and we don't need any big honking obvious mobile suits parked on our lawn.'_

Zechs had been very tired- but he was also incapable of sleeping for more than a few hours during the day. When he woke up at around four o'clock, the sun streaming in the window of the bedroom made it impossible for him to get back to sleep, no matter how hard he tried. With a sigh, the former 'Lightning Count' gave into the inevitable and rolled out of bed, rubbing his eyes and wondering how much he'd have to wander around before his capricious sleeping habits let him doze off again.

_'I should go check on Tallgeese,' _he decided; then his eyes widened as his brain made a connection and fired. _'Crud, I forgot to camouflage it. I was too worried about Treize...oh well, what's done is done, all I can do now is go fix it and hope no one noticed.'_

With this thought in mind, Zechs moved silently out of the bedroom and towards the front door, pausing to smile at Wufei and Treize, who were both soundly asleep on top of each other. _'Lazy men...God, I'm glad they're all right.'_

All thoughts of his boyfriends, however, were temporarily driven from his head as he came through the trees and his eyes settled on his mobile suit...and Maxwell. Cold dread trickled down his spine like ice as Zechs's brain gave him an instant flashback of all the other times that Maxwell had gotten his hands on Tallgeese when Zechs wasn't around.

"Maxwell!!" The shout had a note of near-panic in it that Zechs wasn't proud of, but at least Duo looked up. "What are you doing to my SUIT??"

Undeterred by his tone, Duo pulled his torso out of Tallgeese's cockpit and cheerfully waved a wrench at Zechs. "Hi, Zechsy! What are you doing up and about?"

"Don't change the subject. The question was; What are you doing to my suit?" Zechs leveled his best 'I am your commander and you'd better obey me' glare at Maxwell, who shrugged it off without blinking.

"Just..." Maxwell's grin was evil incarnate, at least, to Zechs's suspicious eyes. "...improving a few things."

This did absolutely nothing to soothe Zechs. "Like what?"

"Well...eheh..." Duo finally seemed to register that Zechs was about to go into a killing rage if Duo didn't 'fess up, right then. "I didn't screw up the paint job, I promise! And the operating system is...still basically the same...not that the paint job couldn't use an improvement..."

"Move." His slightly rambling explanation was interrupted, and Duo scrambled hastily out of Zechs's way as the blonde dropped into Tallgeese's pilot seat and brought up the main screen. It did look...basically...the same...except for the little chibi figure of Deathscythe dancing in the lower corner, waving a sign that announced, 'New and Improved!' in comic-book font. Zechs leveled another killing glare at the braided boy.

"Why is there a chibi Deathscythe dancing on my screen?"

Duo grinned brightly at him. "Well, I was going to make it a chibi Tallgeese, but I needed something for a 'placeholder' and since I already had the Deathscythe pic all formatted...heh. By the way, Wufei was right. You're really gorgeous without your mask."

"Oh..." Zechs absently reached up for where his helmet would have been, except that he'd left it...here. In Tallgeese. _'Oh, well.' _ It wasn't worth putting it on now."Er, thanks?"

Duo chuckled, shaking his head. "I never would have taken you for the clueless type, Zechsy. So," Zechs had turned back to his screen by now, "What do you think?"

_'Odd, he almost sounds...nervous?'_ Zechs shot him a glance, but Duo steadfastly refused to meet his eyes. "I haven't found anything...obviously bad yet. What did you do, Maxwell?"

Duo rolled his eyes. "Call me Duo, will you? Please. Well, for starters, have you taken a look at the anti-grav compensator settings? Once I got a good look at the specs, and realized you have to fly at three-quarters of max speed just to keep this thing from killing you, I thought I should prob'ly do something about it. So, I juiced up the power on the compensators and adjusted the settings so that they kick in a little better up in the top speed range."

Zechs raised an eyebrow, trying not to look as impressed as he felt, while rows of figures and numbers that would have been incomprehensible to anyone but an elite pilot and/or mobile suit tech scrolled by in front of him. "...Well. That's...something I've been meaning to have a look at for a while. Anything else?"

Duo shrugged modestly. "Not much. I may be a Gundam pilot, but I'm not Superman, ya know, and I've only had a few hours. I was just checking out things like stealth abilities and weapons when you got here, and the first half-hour, before I got to the anti-grav compensators, I was tweaking the O.S. Should have a better response time and things like that now."

Now Zechs was starting to wonder just why the Gundams hadn't won yet, if all of their pilots were capable of this kind of thing. "I...see. Remind me, why haven't I switched sides before this? For the tech upgrades alone, it's worth it."

The braided pilot grinned proudly. "Well, maybe it had something to do with the fact that one of your boyfriends was still on the other side?"

"But the other one wasn't," Zechs responded absently. "Six of one, half-a-dozen of the other. Can all five of you do this?"

"Well," Duo was practically strutting now, "not really. I'm the best with fiddling and recalibration stuff like this, mostly because I'm the only one who really gets into it. The other guys usually just fix whatever's broken and move on, unless they really want an upgrade on something."

"So..." Zechs looked at Duo, and, slowly, grinned. "What other 'upgrades' did you have in mind?"

Treize woke up feeling comfortably warm and slightly squashed. For a split second, he didn't remember where he was...then recollection flooded back, and the muscles that had tensed relaxed in relief. However, he didn't manage to keep them relaxed for long; shortly after recollection, pain flooded back as well. Wufei, who had somehow managed to wiggle around in his sleep so that he was sprawled on top of Treize instead of vice versa, grumbled inarticulately in protest as Treize's body flinched involuntarily. The older man was just starting to consider how he could get out of the position he was in without waking Wufei when the front door slammed open and Duo ran inside, shielding his head with his arms and breathless more from laughing than anything. In pursuit was Zechs, silver-blonde hair flying wildly behind him, wielding a large ratchet in mock (at least, Treize assumed it was mock) fury.

"You little punk! How dare you insult Tallgeese so? PINK??"

This last exclamation, seemingly a non-sequitur, informed Treize of what was going on. He leaned back luxuriously, enjoying the show as Duo bounded around the room and Zechs bounded after him. Wufei growled in protest, unwilling to wake up and get off of his nice warm cushion even with all the commotion going on around him.

"Duo, didn't Zechs warn you the last time this came up what would happen if you ever tried to paint his suit again?" the ginger-haired man called out lazily to the leader of the pair.

"I was joking!" Duo protested, putting on an extra burst of speed as Zechs threatened to overtake him. "Can't he take a joke??" Suddenly, amethyst eyes lit up with a sudden idea. Treize barely had time to start to yell before Duo vaulted over the couch complete with inhabitants and began cowering behind it.

"Save me, O mighty Stripy One! I throw myself on your mercy!"

Zechs screeched to a halt in front of the couch, still glowering in playful ferocity at what he could see of Duo as the braided boy peered out from around the threadbare obstacle. Pointing the ratchet as if it were a sword, he announced solemnly, "Sentence him! He insulted my mobile suit! He actually suggested painting it..." he paused for dramatic effect, then crashed back in at full volume. "PINK!"

"What? Pink?" Wufei, still in the process of waking up, blinked at Zechs, who was the only occupant of the room he could see from his current position. "Where? I thought Relena was stalking Heero, not us."

Duo burst into a fit of giggles from behind the couch, Treize began to smirk, and Zechs rolled his eyes and lowered the ratchet with a long-suffering sigh. Wufei took in the situation more fully and sat up, carefully, with a sigh, rolling off of Treize as he did so.

"Obviously, I missed something. Why do you have a ratchet?" The question was addressed to Zechs, who blinked at the hardware in question with sudden recognition and sheepishly tried to conceal it behind his back.

"I...erm...I was looking for a murder weapon, and it was handy?" Only Zechs could have delivered this line while maintaining his poise and making it all seem, somehow, elegant. Well, only Zechs and Treize, anyway.

"I'm being falsely accused!" Duo protested, still behind the couch, but crouched so that the upper half of his face, complete with large, innocent amethyst eyes, was visible. "I didn't exactly suggest painting Tallgeese pink...I just asked what Zechsy thought of pink as a color scheme."

"It was implied," Zechs stated, managing to cross his arms while still holding on the ratchet, and looking unmollified.

"No, it wasn't!" Duo argued. "If you'd let me finish, I was going to suggest painting that other Tallgeese-looking mobile suit pink. You know, to differentiate it from the actual Tallgeese."

Treize, without speaking or noticeably changing expression, held out his good hand towards Zechs. His boyfriend matter-of-factly plonked the ratchet into Treize's palm, and the ginger haired man reached over, somewhat awkwardly since bits of the couch were in the way, and lightly smacked Duo's head with it.

"Ow!" The braided boy rubbed the affronted spot and pouted at Treize much more dramatically than was really, in Wufei's opinion, called for. "What was that for?"

"It should be obvious," Treize informed him haughtily. "That is my mobile suit you threatened with pink. I'd be the first to admit that it could use a new paint job- the current one really is far too much like Tallgeese –but not pink."

"You know," Wufei remarked from the floor, where he had ended up sitting after his roll off of Treize, "I've never actually seen you pilot anything."

"Me neither," Duo agreed. They both looked somewhat expectantly at Treize, who only blinked at them in blank uncooperation. After a moment, Zechs sighed and broke the silence.

"Since he's obviously not going to tell you, I will. Treize is at least as good as, if not better than, me. Which is saying something."

Duo looked incredulous. "Better that Zechsy? The Zechsy who gives Heero a run for his money? I've got to see this."

"I am rather spectacularly out of practice, you know," Treize stated, surreptitiously glaring at Zechs, who only looked impassively back at him. "I haven't done any piloting in...about a year."

"Aw, you'll remember," Duo stated airily, with a dismissive gesture. "It's like learning to ride a bike- once you learn it, it sticks forever. Anyway, though, you can't go out it your suit the way it is now."

"And why not?" Treize sounded interestedly amused. Zechs had settled himself comfortably on the love seat when it became apparent that the conversation was going to take awhile, and was watching everything from behind his long, silvery bangs while trying to hide a yawn. After all the excitement, he was starting to get sleepy again.

"Because it's tacky, that's why!" Duo exclaimed, as if the whole thing should be very obvious. "It's way too much like Tallgeese. What's it called, anyway?"

"Um..." Treize blinked as he did some rapid thinking. "...Loki."

One of Duo's eyebrows crept up suspiciously. "As of when? Something tells me that's not the name it came with."

"As of now," Treize retorted firmly. "You'd shoot me if I told you what it was originally called, and I've got enough holes in me at present."

This was the last thing Zechs remembered of the conversation, along with a blurry impression of Wufei sitting cross-legged on the floor, with a few strands of obsidian hair escaping from his normally severe ponytail. When Treize and Duo wrapped up their discussion, approximately an hour later, Zechs was still sound asleep.

A week later, none of the other pilots had returned from their missions, and Duo was bored out of his mind. So bored, in fact, that he was starting to consider laying a few booby traps somewhere just to relieve the tedium. At this point, even being murdered by Zechs for 'damaging' his precious Tallgeese would be better than being So. Damned. Bored.

He had been announcing this, loudly and at regular intervals, for the past few days, so Wufei wasn't too surprised at the sudden crashing noise which came from the braided boy's room at around two o'clock in the afternoon. If anything, the fifteen or so minutes of silence preceding it had been more shocking, not to mention alarming. Still, Wufei decided, crashing noises from Duo tended to be precursors of disaster; he headed up the stairs to see what was going on.

A cautious glance through the half-opened door of the room Duo normally shared with Heero revealed the braided boy seated ungracefully on the floor in front of the closet, rubbing the back of his head and muttering imprecations. A cardboard box was lying open beside him, looking somewhat battered. Wufei only had to read the title emblazoned on it in excited-looking letters to know that he wasn't going to like Duo's latest plan. The box read: Super-accurate LASER TAG! Have a shootout with your friends! Ages 8, batteries not included.

Duo looked up at him and grinned, only somewhat maniacally. "Hi, Fei! Guess what I found in the back of the closet!"

Wufei examined the box again, dubiously. "Do I want to know?"

"It's laser tag!" When Wufei still looked blankly suspicious, Duo rolled his eyes. "C'mon, don't you know what laser tag is? Look," still seated on the floor, he began to rummage through the box, and pulled out a harness and plastic gun, "you wear this, and shoot with this. If your laser hits the other person's harness, it bingles." To demonstrate, Duo shot the harness he was holding at point-blank range. A high-pitched alarm went off, making Wufei wince, and continued for several seconds until Duo thumbed a button. "Easy as pie."

Wufei eyed it, again, dubiously. "Let me guess...you want us to play this?"

Duo nodded enthusiastically. "C'mon, 'Fei, it's fun! And I'm booored! Please?"

The Chinese boy sighed, then grinned somewhat evilly as an idea struck him. "All right, I'll play this...laser tag..." Duo started to beam, but Wufei cut him off quickly. "If, and only if, you convince Zechs to play too."

"Sure."

Duo beamed at Wufei; Wufei glared at Zechs.

"Sure? You're not supposed to say 'sure'! You're supposed to say no so I won't have to play!"

Zechs smirked at his boyfriend unrepentantly. "Oops. Besides, it does sound as though it could be enjoyable. At least, more so than sitting inside all day trying to find something good on daytime television."

Treize's voice drifted over the back of the couch to join the conversation. "I completely concur. I'm playing too."

Wufei groaned. "Not you, too! You're both spoiling my image of you as mature, sophisticated officers! Besides," here, his tone took a serious turn, "you can't play, you're injured."

"Sniping doesn't require a lot of motion," Treize pointed out reasonably. "I intend to spend the entire game firmly planted behind some wonderful bit of cover, picking all of you off one by one."

"I...gehr..." Wufei stopped, took a deep breath, sighed, and continued. "I'm not going to win this argument, am I?" The other three occupants of the safe house shook their heads. "So I should probably just give up now and try to enjoy this...laser tag...shouldn't I?" Three heads went up and down. Wufei sighed again. "Very well. Let's go."

"AUGH!" Duo staggered to a halt in the middle of his run for cover as his harness bingled loudly, announcing that Trieze had just taken him out. "Oh, woe, woe is me! I hath fallen in the heat of battle, with none to mourn my demise!" He wobbled dramatically in a circle, hand to his forehead, and prepared to continue his speech. Zechs cut him off, amused.

"This isn't an opera, you know, Duo. You don't get a three minute death aria." The silver-haired pilot was reclining lazily in the grass, harness and gun spread out beside him; Wufei had mown him down within the first five minutes of the game. Duo flopped down facing him and grinned.

"Aw, c'mon, Zechsy, doncha want to hear me sing?"

Zechs raised an elegant eyebrow. "No. I've heard you sing."

Duo pouted at him. "Are you implying that...I..." He trailed off in mid-sentence, staring up at something behind Zechs, expression slowly shading towards 'oh, crap.' Zechs swiveled in the grass to see what the braided boy was looking at. His expression changed not a single iota as he spoke.

"Oh, hello, Yui. How was the mission?"


	5. In which there is lots of yelling

Um…hi? looks around sheepishly Geez, I barely recognize this place anymore. Well, anyway, I got a lovely review today from StarFox21, and I started thinking about this old story that I effectively abandoned ages ago. Then I rifled through my hard drive, pulled out the draft of this chapter, finished it and tidied it up, and here we are. It's shorter than the other chapters by quite a bit, but it effectively ends the story. (In other words, I might write a few more chapters, but don't count on it.) Enjoy, guys.

Chapter Five: In which Heero is made to see sense with the help of everyone (and possibly a few gods)

Heero didn't know whether to be furiously angry, confused, or homicidal. _Zechs Merquise_, THE Zechs Merquise, the Lighting Count, Heero's very own personal nemesis, was sitting on the lawn of the Gundam boys' safe house, playing _laser tag_, of all things, with Heero's _boyfriend_. If pilot 01 had been in any state to notice, he might have worried a little at the amount of emphasized words in that mental sentence, but he wasn't. He had settled in an emotional state that was somewhere between the three aforementioned options, mostly the first and second ones, but the third was likely to rear its head at any moment if he didn't get an explanation _right now_. As he was taking a deep breath to begin yelling, Wufei's harness went off.

---

"Damn," Wufei sighed, resignedly. "Oh, well. I knew better than to think I was getting out of that one alive."

"Naturally," Treize retorted smugly. "I am, after all, the best shot I know. And that's saying something, seeing who the list of my acquaintances includes." He glanced over his shoulder at the field containing the first two fallen, spotted a third figure who was looking more outraged by the minute, and grimaced. "Oh, look. Yui's back."

"Great. Lovely. Just what we needed," Wufei groaned. "I was hoping Trowa and Quatre would get back first so we could bring them around and gang up on Yui, but it looks like we're going to have to tough it out on our own."

"You mean on your own," Treize corrected, with just a _hint_ of a smug smirk. "I'm still injured, remember? I'm going to stay right here. _You_ can go talk to him."

"You're evil," Wufei informed him, glowering, then sighed and leaned over his boyfriend. "Do I get a goodbye kiss before I go let Yui murder me?"

Treize pulled him down the rest of the way with his good arm, kissed him thoroughly, then released him. "Of course. Don't _let_ him murder you, all right? Put up at least some resistance."

"Deal." Wufei took a deep breath, straightened up, and strode over to where Heero was currently screaming at Duo, who was looking somewhere between exasperated, hurt, and just plain upset. Zechs was receiving his fair share of abuse as well, but the tall blonde had folded his arms over his chest and put on a blank expression, and was seemingly untouched by whatever Heero threw at him. Wufei could tell that he was on the verge of exploding, and intervened hastily.

"Look, Yui…" He didn't get any farther into what he was planning to say; in a way, this was a good thing, since he didn't really have anything planned.

"YOU!" Heero wheeled on him instantly, changing targets with ease. At least Zechs and Duo will have a chance to recover, Wufei thought, then braced himself. "I thought YOU at least would have better sense!! Just because they _say_ they've switched sides, or been kicked out, or whatever, doesn't mean we should just take their word for it!! I mean, they're the ENEMY!!"

"They're my boyfriends." Wufei almost winced instinctively as the words escaped his mouth. That was definitely the _wrong_ thing to say, Heero was going to _kill_ him, this was bad, Heero…wasn't yelling? Wufei blinked, then gulped mentally, keeping his face impassive. No, Heero wasn't yelling, but, from the looks of things, the only reason was because he was too shocked to even breathe; he was staring at Wufei in utter disbelief, eyes bulging. Quickly, Duo took advantage of the momentary silence.

"They're also trustworthy men, Heero! Even at their worst, when have Zechs or Treize ever _lied_? Never! So…" Heero cut him off, seemingly without realizing it. His voice was about an octave above its usual range.

"YOUR WHAT??"

"My BOYFRIENDS!!" Wufei was suddenly yelling too, without quite realizing how it had happened, but releasing months of built-up tension and frustration with Heero felt very cathartic. He continued. "And I KNOW we can trust them, so you can just _DEAL WITH IT_!!!"

Zechs, although half mesmerized by the impressive sight of Wufei tearing into Yui, caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of his eye, sighed, and went to help Treize. The older man was looking upset, and trying to struggle to his feet, probably to come and sacrifice himself on the altar of Yui's wrath in a misguided attempt to save Wufei. Zechs gently pushed him back down, almost grinning as he caught anger in Trieze's eyes along with guilt. At least he had the sense to blame some of this conflict on Heero!

"Zechs, I have to go over there! They're fighting because of _us_. I should…"

"You should sit here and let Wufei have it out with Yui," Zechs told him firmly. "From the looks of things, he's rather enjoying screaming at him. When they've calmed down a bit, then I'll help you up and we can go over."

This took a while. After a few minutes, Duo gave up trying to get a word in edgewise and strode over to throw himself down on the grass next to Zechs and Treize.

"I'm never getting laid again," the braided boy announced despairingly. "Never!! Hell, I'll be lucky if Heero ever speaks to me again!"

"I'm sorry," Treize apologized. "This is all my fault, and…"

Duo rolled his eyes, and cut him off. "Don't blame yourself! It's Heero's fault for being so damn paranoid, if it's anyone's. Besides, I wasn't _really_ serious about never getting laid again. If we manage to pound some sense into him, Heero'll prob'ly forgive me in a few weeks or so."

"Speaking of pounding sense," Zechs put in, watching the fight still in full swing across the yard, "are they _ever_ going to wind down?"

"Well," Duo replied slowly, watching them with a critical eye, "I've never actually seen 'Fei have a screaming argument with anyone, but Hee-chan usually can't keep it up for more than fifteen minutes or so. Then he tries to stalk off and do his version of pouting, which is messing with Wing. Ah… there he goes now."

They watched as Heero growled in frustration. It was easy to hear him; neither pilot was exactly modulating their volume.

"I can't _believe_ this!! You're insane!!" Apparently considering this a fitting end to the conversation, Heero turned firmly and walked away. Wufei, however, had other ideas, and his black eyes narrowed as he grabbed the blue-eyed boy by the shoulder and spun him back around.

"You've still failed to provide me with a _reason_ for your mistrust of Treize." The Chinese boy's voice had gone cold and flat; Duo, Zechs, and Treize knew this for the bad sign it was, and all three flinched instinctively. "Aside from near-obsessive paranoia. Give me logic. Give me _proof_. And in the meantime, _leave my boyfriends ALONE_!!"

Heero jerked himself out of Wufei's grip and stalked off, without looking back. Duo, however, looked somewhat relieved. Treize raised a curious eyebrow at him as Wufei glared at the Japanese boy's retreating back, clenching and unclenching his fists.

"What is there to be relieved about? I'd say that went rather spectacularly badly."

"It did," Duo admitted, looking rueful, "but it's not as bad as it could have been. And 'Fei got the last word in. When you're fighting with Hee-chan, that's important, 'cause if _he_ gets the last word, then he'll assume he won, and he won't think about a thing that you actually said."

"Somehow, that doesn't surprise me," Zechs, a veteran of many more violent fights with Heero, sighed. Treize was more concerned, however, with Wufei, who was making his way back over towards the other three, shoulders tight with anger and frustration which was working its way out in little shivers.

"Are you okay?" the former general asked, gingerly. Wufei flung himself onto the grass next to his boyfriends and punched the ground, viciously.

"Great. Fine. Splendid. Ter-riffic." Zechs put a comforting hand on his shoulder, and Wufei sighed. "It wasn't really bad- at least I got to let out some of my frustration at Heero –but I'm still so…he's so STUBBORN. Not to mention unreasonably paranoid and single-minded."

"I think he'll come around, actually," Duo put in, watching the set of Heero's shoulders as he walked away. "He's not stupid. I'll talk to him later, after he's cooled down."

Wufei shot him a cautious look. "You sure? He seems pretty angry…"

Duo shrugged. "So? I'm used to it. Heero's mental punching bag, that's me." He grinned at them, a little rueful, but not bad. "So, how are we going to spend the hour or two until it's safe to approach within ten feet of Mr. Perfect Soldier?"

"We could play poker," Treize suggested, a faint twinkle in his eyes the only thing betraying his apparent seriousness. Duo gave him a dirty look.

"No. I already owe you five hundred dollars from the day before yesterday, Treize Take-Advantage-of-the-Fact-that-my-Boyfriends-are-too-Loyal-to-Warn-the-Newbie-that-I-am-a-Card-Shark-Kushrenada."

Treize gave him an innocent look. "What? It's not my fault that I have the most appalling good luck."

"Su-ure it's not." With a mock-aggravated sigh, Duo threw himself backwards to lie in the grass. "So cards are out. Hmm..."

---

Treize smiled, catlike and utterly predatory. Duo groaned. Wufei and Zechs looked on in amusement, but said nothing.

"I believe that's two hundred dollars you owe me, Maxwell. Pay up."

Duo grudgingly handed over the slips of fake money, pouting. "You're evil."

"At least its not real money this time," Wufei pointed out practically.

"But…but," Duo moaned tragically. "My beautiful properties! My houses! I'll have to start selling them, and then where will I be!"

"Out." Zechs's statement was brief and to the point as he counted out spaces. "Hmf. Free parking. I'm saved."

"Heero's coming back," Wufei observed, peering out the window at the figure approaching jerkily across the lawn.

"Perhaps I spoke too soon," Zechs murmured, craning his neck to try and see the Japanese pilot. He ducked back down and everyone busily focused on their cards as Heero stalked through the door, letting it swing shut behind him without actually slamming it, and stood with his fists clenched, glaring at Wufei. The Chinese boy studiously ignored him for a few seconds before looking up.

"What do you want, Yui?"

"I…apologize." He sounded as though every word was being ripped out from between his teeth, and his fists clenched tighter as everyone at the table stared up at him in disbelief. "Unless, and…until…Mr. Kushrenada gives me a…reason to mistrust him, I'll try to stop acting like a…" here he looked up, meeting Wufei's eyes for the first time, and actually managed a tiny rueful smirk, " 'paranoid asshole'."

This said, he turned and strode quickly across the room and up the stairs, leaving everyone gaping after him. Wufei blinked, incredulously.

"Well, that was…unexpected. Did Yui just admit to being wrong?"

"That's…what I heard." Zechs stared after the Japanese pilot. "I think."

Duo broke into a relieved grin. "I knew he'd come around!" Three heads swiveled to stare at him with as much incredulity as they'd turned on Heero, and the braided boy coughed sheepishly. "Eventually." He glanced over towards the stairs, then narrowed his eyes speculatively and got up.

"What about the game?" Treize asked as Duo started after Heero.

"I fold," Duo called back over his retreating shoulder. " 'Fei can have my stuff."

"What little of it there is," Wufei muttered, collecting the abandoned cards. "Well, we won't be seeing them again for a few hours."

"Oh?" Zechs asked, then realization struck. "Oh. Oooh."

"Let's just go back to Monopoly," Treize suggested. "I'm trying not to think about it."

Smirking slightly, Wufei handed over the dice. All was right with the world.


End file.
